A village nursery has been closed immediately after an Ofsted report found it was not meeting legal requirements over safeguarding.

Stickleberries Day Nursery in Winterborne Stickland near Blandford employs around 15 staff members and is attended by around 130 children.

An Ofsted inspection on August 7 found that the nursery was not compliant with safeguarding regulations and warned children attending "may be at risk of harm".

It follows a number of regulatory visits by Ofsted to check whether safeguarding regulations had been met, each time these conditions had not been fully met.

The provider was suspended by Ofsted and subsequently resigned from their role.

The report by Ofsted wrote: "On 7 August 2023, we carried out a regulatory visit.

The focus of the visit was to check whether the provider had met the safeguarding and welfare actions due by 4 August, raised at their last inspection.

"We found that the provider had met some of the safeguarding and welfare actions but not others.

"They had improved the procedures for the use of mobile phones and the deployment of staff to supervise children more effectively.

"However, they did not address the breaches of requirements relating to the safeguarding of children.

"We served another welfare requirements notice.

"The provider will be able to give parents further information about this."

A spokesperson for Dorset Council said: "Stickleberries Day Nursery in Winterborne Stickland was a privately run nursery setting for early years which was inspected by Ofsted on 01 August.

"At this visit, Ofsted found that the provider was not meeting some of the statutory requirements of the early years foundation stage. 

Dorset Council has a statutory requirement to offer advice to any nursery setting, including those that are privately run, that has been required by Ofsted to make improvements.

"This advice has been given to Stickleberries over recent weeks, however, the setting does not have to act on the advice given. 

"Ofsted visited the setting on 07 August and found insufficient improvement which resulted in them suspending the provider’s registration.

"The provider resigned their registration the following day and they are no longer a registered childcare provider."